


Everyone Loves The Kitsune

by rvst



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira loved that about her girlfriend. Even if it ended with them babysitting for their friends more often than not, Kira still loved Malia's natural affinity with children. They hated Kira herself.</p><p>Which made her current situation all the more strange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Loves The Kitsune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreshBrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/gifts).



Malia was an overgrown pup, she got along easily with children under the age of ten. Leader of the kids without a doubt. Babies passing by on the street being pushed by their parents never failed to smile back at her, always laughed when she pulled a funny face. Toddlers wanted to give her things they found, tiny fingers then reaching for whatever shiny glasses or necklace or bracelet she was wearing once they were done bribing her for a chance to get close and grab.

 

Kira loved that about her girlfriend. Even if it ended with them babysitting for their friends more often than not, Kira still loved Malia's natural affinity with children. They hated Kira herself.

 

Which made her current situation all the more strange.

 

When she picked up the puppy on her way home, she saw a poor little creature without a collar and obviously too young to defend itself. As a general rule, their apartment building didn't allow pets, but Kira rationalised the decision by telling herself that it was only for one night. If the puppy didn't have a microchip implanted, then they would just have to drive out to the rural area to annoy Cora and Lydia on their ranch. Kira had been craving Cora's barbecued steak for weeks and would jump at any chance to go out and annoy lunch out of the other woman.

 

What was the point of dating her cousin if it didn't come with perks?

 

The puppy explored their cosy apartment with careful attention to each and every inch of the floor before moving on to taking in the furniture and noting which chairs could be jumped on and most importantly that the bed was fully accessible. Kira followed it around the modest rooms, checking for any sign of injury or illness. The puppy didn't have any blood on it, dried or otherwise. That was reassuring at least, and it hadn't tried to bite her or anything which was promising.

 

Kira started to make dinner. Despite not getting home until the full moon was well in the sky, Kira had still beaten Malia home by more than an hour. She giggled, same as always when she thought of her relatively small girlfriend throwing people out of the bar she worked security at, grown men easily sent flying. The shock worked better than her hidden strength, combining to prompt patrons of the bar to give the damn security woman tips, to the amazement of the bartenders.

 

She restrained herself from jumping in shock when something furry brushed up against her ankles. The puppy yapped at her until she dropped some beef strips into its waiting mouth. It rubbed against her legs in thanks, coming to rest next to her on the tiled floor.

 

Kira smiled down at the pup, her heart jumping as the front door flew open.

 

"Babe! Bikers look funny when they bleed!" Malia yelled, announcing herself as not a threat. While reminding their neighbours yet again that she was very much a threat. The puppy dashed from next to Kira's feet to inspect and potentially intimidate the new creature invading its space. Kira moved her pan off the heat and followed the puppy blistering trail.

 

Malia closed the door gently, not aware of the furry cannonball charging towards her, teeth bared and chest rumbling with a growl. She slid home their deadbolt and heard tiny toenails clicking along their hardwood flooring.

 

Then the puppy started barking, vicious and actually threatening for a creature so tiny. Malia flattened herself against the door instinctively and Kira was in the room in a flash, ready to defend her girlfriend from the tiny terror. Hands flying to her mouth, she stifled her laugh at Malia's exaggerated stricken expression.

 

"I'm telling the bikers that Miss Wolf Pack Security is afraid of a cute little pup," mocked Kira through her laughter. Malia glared at her playfully while the puppy kept on making it displeasure known at the new person invading the space.

 

A finger pointed at her accusingly. "I am the cute pup around here, and I will not tolerate competition," Malia complained, edging her way around the puppy to grab Kira around the waist. Kira's hands slid into her hair as she welcomed her girlfriend home with a kiss. Malia managed to tune out the dog, focusing on being home and the warm feelings that came along with it. They broke the kiss but Malia kept her grip tight and turned her head to stare at the distressed animal. "Why is there a puppy?"

 

Kira hummed, happily leaning into the embrace while holding out a hand to try and command the puppy to heel non-verbally. This did not work, it continued vocalising its displeasure. "I found them on the street, and they don't have a collar," she explained minimally, wanting more cuddles rather than discussing who may or may not have brought a possibly wild animal into their home.

 

"'They'?" Malia poked at Kira's side, she was immediately rewarded with Kira squirming delightfully to get away from her fingers. "Did we not check if it's a boy pup or a girl pup? I think it's a boy," she tacked on, side-eyeing the aggressive little thing. Kira tugged on her hair, eliciting a whine. "Why?"

 

"Be nice to the puppy, just because they're aggressive, doesn't mean that they're a boy," Kira said slowly, smoothing out any damage she might have done to Malia's scalp with a gentle massage. "You're aggressive and you aren't a boy."

 

Malia sniffed dismissively, blocking out the throbbing where she was pretty sure Kira removed some of her poor beautiful hair. "I am exceptional, and the puppy isn't being nice to me!"

 

"The puppy is a puppy, Malia!" Kira admonished, breaking their contact to scoop up the poor creature. She sensed Malia throwing her hands up in frustration behind her, choosing to ignore her in favour of cradling the puppy in her arms and heading back to the kitchen to finish making dinner. It was a struggle to manage without touching any of the food with her hands, but the puppy was clearly going to go racing after Malia if she let it go. She would ask Malia to check to see if it was a male or a female puppy later, once they were done bonding with each other.

 

Or at least until the puppy could stand the sight of her girlfriend without raging hard at her.

 

Malia tentatively ventured into the kitchen, slowly approaching the puppy and giving it an intense once over, sniffing the air to confirm her suspicions. The puppy raised itself to glare at her, growling but not going full on loud and angry again. "Ha!"

 

Kira didn't move, more than used to Malia's constant outbursts. "Yes?"

 

Malia's confident smirk was always a worry. "Totally a dude dog, I am a genius!"

 

Kira smiled indulgently. "Modest as ever, very attractive," she replied, her grin saccharine as she turned it on Malia. To her credit, Malia held up both hands and backed up at the force of the puppy's glare and Kira's scary sweet smile.

 

"I'm going to go set the table," she announced quickly. "Would you maybe consider putting him in the bedroom so we can eat in peace and I can kiss you without having tiny eyes judging me and teeth about to bite my poor legs?"

 

Her lower lip jutted out and her eyes shone with a pleading light. Kira tried to resist, really she did. She lifted the puppy up to her face and nuzzled him. "Okay little one, into the room with the big fun bouncy thing, the other pup is pouting at me."

 

Malia bounced on the balls of her feet, drifting into the kitchen and throwing open the cupboards with more excitement than setting the table warranted.

 

Kira set the puppy in the middle of the bed, grabbing one of the tennis balls they had lying around the apartment at him for something to play with.

 

Dinner gone and dishes stowed in the machine, Kira let the puppy out of the bedroom. He went jumping and barking energetically between her legs and around her feet, she knelt to give him more access to her, taking him in her arms again. Malia made sure to keep her distance, leaning against the wall and admiring her girlfriend being sickeningly cute.

 

"He's going to insist on sleeping with us, isn't he?" Malia asked carefully, keeping her tone even and not at all worried about waking to a small jaw closed around her throat. It was a reality of her life in the pack, and one she didn't want coming home with her if it could be helped. "And I am not getting anywhere near you all damn night."

 

Kira giggled as the puppy licked her hands and diverted an piece of her attention from the dog to her girlfriend. "I really don't think so, he might try to take a finger or something," she said, having the good grace to sound apologetic. "Should we name him?"

 

Malia almost choked on her own saliva, the innocent tone striking that urge to find a nice warm den to settle down in that bubbled inside Malia at all times. Maybe they should get a dog more permanently, one that didn't hate her. Now that she had some distance and the pup wasn't focused on her, Malia checked him for any problems and found something weird that she couldn't quite explain. Familiar though, very familiar.

 

The puppy took advantage of a lapse in Kira's affections to bound to Malia's feet and resume his growling and glaring but thankfully not starting up with the barking again. One of the braver neighbours would be knocking on their door after too much more of that, someone had to be willing to stand up to Malia and her reputation.

 

"Well we need something to make him stop doing that!" Kira exclaimed at the puppy, causing him to stop instantly and turn to her with what was the most adorable expression in all of history. "Oh no you don't mister! You will make nice with Malia for at least the rest of the night and we can revisit this in the morning!"

 

Malia raised her eyebrows at the increase in volume and downright maternal admonishment Kira was pulling out of nowhere. Yeah, need to get a more permanent dog, maybe a cat too, Malia wondered idly to herself. She schooled her expression into something less affectionate and wistful as Kira turned to her.

 

"You," Malia wanted to salute or something, given Kira's authoritative voice, "in bed. Now."

 

Malia did not need to be told twice, getting ready for bed in record time while Kira kept on lecturing the puppy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“We aren't keeping him,” began Malia as soon as Kira entered the room. The puppy trailed after her, his head drooping in shame after his harsh rebuking from the only person in the apartment he actually liked. “Cousin dearest can take him if you can't stand to leave him at the pound, but we can't keep a dog that hates one of us in the apartment. No matter how much you terrify the owner.”

 

Kira's hand flew to her chest, a scandalised expression flashing across her face. “I terrify the owner? Every single time you get home from work it's some new yelled story about what big and scary man you beat up, and I scare the owner?”

 

“I don't get it either,” she replied, holding her hands up in defeat. This did not help the situation and Malia wisely slid further down underneath the covers, pulling them up as a shield against what was surely coming her way.

 

Instead of yelling or possibly throwing the puppy at her, Kira surprised Malia by silently getting ready for bed. Malia, after the torture continued for long minutes, considered that being ignored was far worse than being barked at by the invader.

 

His big brown eyes stared at her, daring her to make a move towards his new owner. Malia thumped back into her pillows, groaning with anticipation of a night without Kira talking to her. That was always the worst.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Malia woke to an insistent poking in her side. She whined at the intrusion in to her pleasant dreams and slowly rolled over without opening her eyes.

 

"Firstly, I am not having sex in front of a puppy, it might traumatise the little bastard," she began, her voice tinged with sleep and speech slurring with her still hazy mind. "Second, we are not keeping him, no matter how cute he is while he's asleep."

 

Kira squeaked, which was something she only did when she was overwhelmed. Malia sighed, silly girlfriend making her open her eyes before she was ready. "No, we can't keep him, dear."

 

Malia blinked, then blinked again. "He's-"

 

Kira hissed at her to keep her voice down, resting her head on top of a pile of brown curls piled upon a very human head.

 

"Last night was a full moon," noted Malia, detaching from the sudden situation for a precious moment. Her logical assessment of the situation earned her a swift slap on her stomach by Kira's free hand. Because the other one was cradling a little boy, not the puppy she had fell asleep unknowingly cuddling. The boy was still sound asleep, tiny hand clutching at Kira's night clothes as he nested into her for warmth and comfort. "Now we have to call Cora and Lydia."

 

Kira glared at her, Malia shrugged it off. She was secure in needing help from her friends when shit got weird, and she wasn't all embarrassed about it like her girlfriend seemed to be perpetually.

 

"We don't have to call them," Kira argued, rubbing her hand soothingly over the boy's spine as he stirred in distress. "We can handle this."

 

Malia was not convinced. "We can handle accidentally bringing a baby werewolf home who can manage a full transformation?" The sceptical tone kept Kira's glare fixed upon her girlfriend with renewed vigour.

 

"Exactly!" Malia's head cocked to the side, unaware of what the hell Kira meant. "Who better to deal with a full transformation than you? Cora's never gone full wolf and Lydia will just call Allison then Stiles and we can do that."

 

Malia gaped at her girlfriend who broke her glare to focus on the werewolf in her arms. Which, Malia thought while rubbing her face to get the cobwebs out of her head, was most likely why he didn't like a werecoyote barging into his space. They weren't natural adversaries as far as Malia could tell, but Scott had confessed to her once that she smelled weird compared to every werewolf he had met. Malia snorted, dragging Kira from her awed staring to glare again.

 

"Why do all the wolves like the kitsune?" Kira rolled her eyes and dis-tangled herself from the covers, taking the kid with her as she wandered out towards the kitchen.

 

"When you're done being funny, call your cousin please!" Kira yelled, apparently forgetting that she had a sleeping child in her arms. Malia rolled her eyes but reached for her phone anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cora laughed for a solid minute when Malia called her. That hurt.

 

“Are you quite finished?” Malia growled, hearing the case on her phone crack as her grip tightened. “I have a damn kid here that was a fucking wolf cub last night!”

 

Cora reigned in her giggles for a few seconds. “Are you sure you didn't just find a really hairy toddler?”

 

Malia winced as the sound of breaking glass directly next to her ear. That was the fourth time this month and their tech guy was making noises about revoking her free replacement service. Saving a person's life must have more perks than four free phone repairs, but apparently not.

 

“We are coming out there so you can check him out for us, have food ready for a late lunch or Kira will pout you to death,” Malia threatened, hanging up her broken phone immediately after she was done speaking. Lydia would call her back and lay into her without preamble if they had a problem with the plan.

 

“Hey there, Little Pup, do you have a name?” Kira asked the toddler. She had settled him on her hip until she had a free hand to prepare them some kind of breakfast. Malia stood in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame and taking in her girlfriend in her suddenly maternal glory. It was beyond strange and the kid was glaring at her without Kira noticing, but the image had a charm overall. “Because it would be great if you could tell us if you do. We can't really take a little werewolf to the police and packs tend not to report missing persons in official channels.”

 

The boy continued to glare at her as Malia entered the room properly, creeping up behind Kira. He was mercifully silent today, not still barking at her or throwing a tantrum. She held out an arm to hover underneath his body while her other arm wrapped around Kira's waist.

 

Kira yelped when Malia pulled her backward into her body. “Do you two need any help?” Malia asked, resting her head on Kira's shoulder. Kira failed completely at attempting to crack an egg with one hand. “I'm taking that as a yes.”

 

Kira leaned back into her girlfriend, hugging the boy closer as Malia's other arm snaked its way around her middle. “Are you two going to get along today?”

 

Malia kissed Kira's cheek, earning herself a fairly adorable growl from the werewolf on her other side. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead into Kira's hair, breathing in her untainted scent. Malia, disgustingly in Kira's eyes, liked to be closest to her girlfriend before she had the chance to shower every morning. Her opportunities were rare and Kira was usually gone by the time Malia woke, so she was taking advantage of the situation even if the kids tiny feet were kicking her arms.

 

“No, I don't think that's happening any time soon,” Malia answered, lightly guiding Kira away from the counter and towards their barstools. “You sit and entertain the monster and I'll make breakfast, alright?”

 

“He is not a monster!” Kira screeched, holding the boy closer. Malia took a step back in disbelief. Kira generally hated kids, which was mostly because they hated her. “And we really need your name now, sweetie?”

 

The boy didn't give her anything, though he did grin in a manner entirely too smug for someone of his age at Malia. Not cool, she thought, and considered not making him any breakfast. Then she remembered that she was an adult and pushed the notion from her mind. The boy squealed and babbled as Kira played with him, bouncing him up and down while her tried to grab at her streaked hair.

 

“Maybe he can't talk?” Malia ventured as soon as she figured Kira was done being pissed for the 'monster' comment. “I think I read something about off the grid packs not being especially encouraging of vocal development, even more-so when the kid can shift fully.”

 

Kira snorted, the boy copying his new favourite person immediately, “you mean you heard Lydia say it one time and the sands of time have convinced you that you actually read something.”

 

Malia didn't take serious offence to the argument. It was far more likely that she had heard it somewhere after all, especially from Kira's perspective on her girlfriend. “Normally, I'd agree with you, but Lydia actually translated pages and pages of that hunter clan bestiary we 'liberated' over the summer. I was ordered to deal with all of the full shift sections, she made me summarize them because she didn't have the time or some other bullshit that wasn't 'I have just married your cousin and my hands are occupied for the near-future' also known as the truth.”

 

Kira covered the boy's ears, glaring in comic seriousness at Malia. She surrendered easily, placing the plate of fat and protein in front of her girlfriend to fight off any coming admonishments coming her way. “He can hear you, even if his pack left him with developmental issues.”

 

The look on her face as she said it was more than worrying. “Babe, we are not keeping him. Stop considering the nearest schools with excellent special needs programs.”

 

Kira flushed, which just plain tickled the boy's fancy, and nudged Malia's thigh with her knee. “I'm not nearly as well-informed as I would need to be to do that,” she defended weakly, feeding the boy little chunks of her bacon. “Should we feed him a fruit of some kind? Kids need that right?”

 

Hopping off her own barstool, Malia didn't think about how adorable her Kira was when she was concerned and unsure. It was a slippery slope that only led to adopting werewolf kids who couldn't stand the presence of a werecoyote. That would be less than ideal, she thought even as she carefully cut the kid an apple. He accepted it without protest from Kira's hands, and looked like he was about to start biting if Malia even considered trying to feed him.

 

Malia kissed Kira, dodging the boy's incoming fists, and pulled back with her own overly-childish triumphant grin. “We would need to move to be close enough to a program I'd consider acceptable.”

 

Kira was left gaping with a growling ball of angry werewolf as Malia danced off to prepare for the day, he really did not like her one bit.

 

The ride over to the ranch would be a treat.

 

“And we can't take the car! No car-seat for the monster!”

 

Kira groaned, smiling when her little man copied the noise in a break between his perpetual growling.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Two trains and another call to the Hale-Martin household left Malia with a black eye from a rogue foot and Kira struggling to contain her worry over just how anti-girlfriend her temporary ward continued to be. She was starting to consider other possibilities, like there was another werecoyote in their city and it had terrorized the boy sometime in his past.

 

Perhaps that was what happened to his pack?

 

Cora's reasonable Jeep sat in the only occupied parking space at the train station. They didn't exactly live in the bustling metropolis Kira and Malia did, mostly out of comfort for Lydia. Banshee problems made for a lot of space for Cora and Malia to run in during full moons and gave Cora all the solitude she needed to recover from her time packed in with too many people in South America.

 

Lydia stepped, well jumped, out of the car, or small truck as she called it to Cora's constant arguing. Kira fussed over the boy's hair while Malia scratched at her right eye, and Lydia could barely believe how mature they both looked with the kid around them. She knew, obviously, that neither of them were all that much younger than herself, but there was something about children that gave people an air of age and wisdom that could only otherwise be achieved by greying hair and wrinkles.

 

Lydia had found three grey hairs last week, Cora physically restrained her from going to get them dyed immediately.

 

“You were not kidding,” she stated by way of greeting the trio. “That's a freaking kid you have there, and he's still breathing!”

 

Kira glared at her like she'd just insulted her weapon maintenance as Malia continued to mess with her eye. “If you keep playing with it, it'll never heal,” Kira admonished her girlfriend. Malia pouted, finally dropping her hand to reveal a bruised eye that seemed fresh to Lydia's eyes.

 

“Did he do that?” Lydia asked, guiding them to the old car-seat Cora dug out of the attic. It belonged to the previous owners of the ranch, and Lydia had them submit a statement in writing that the kid outgrew it rather than died while it was still needed. That was the oddest conversation she'd ever had with a pair of strangers that week. All in all, a fairly normal week by their standards, if a bit boring. “He's got some swing on those fists,” she added, to Malia's obvious discomfort.

 

“He kicked me,” she whined, getting into the front seat of the Jeep. A complete lack of interest in making sure the kid was situated okay in the back oozed from her. Lydia rolled her eyes. “Don't you freaking start!”

 

Kira took no time to figure out the anchoring and seatbelts involved with the car-seat, which Cora had declared impossible after ten minutes of effort which led to Lydia being elected to go pick the trio up from the station. “He hasn't been the nicest to her,” she whispered conspiratorially to Lydia, though they both knew Malia could hear her.

 

“He likes you, though,” Lydia tried to sooth the problem, failing miserably. She got in close, hesitantly, to greet the boy properly now he was restrained. “He's growling.”

 

“He does that,” Kira said apologetically. “Only Malia going away makes him stop, or sleep.”

 

Lydia smiled in a way she hoped wasn't too terrifying for kids, though she had barely any experience with them. “Oh he's cute,” she cooed, reaching forward to pinch his chubby cheeks lightly.

 

Her fingertips made contact with his skin and she had to stuff her other hand into her mouth to stop the scream that fought its way through her body. Nearly knocking Kira over, Lydia threw herself away from the child and her face paled. Malia was out of the car and checking over the boy within two seconds, her shoulder bumping into Kira's as the other woman also reacted with fairly extreme concern to whatever could be wrong with the kid.

 

“We need to go,” Lydia stated, leaving no room for questions though her voice wavered. “He's okay, we just need to get to Cora right now.”

 

Malia was on the other side of the boy in his car-seat, even as he swung at her and growled his heart out. Kira ran a hand through his hair, controlling her suddenly on fire nerves with the soothing gesture. He fell asleep halfway to the ranch, taking Kira with him as the emotional toll of the morning caught up with her. Maternal instincts were exhausting once the rush wore off.

 

Malia had one arm behind the car-seat, hand rubbing at Kira's tense shoulders and neck while her free hand lay across the boy's stomach. She didn't notice Lydia watching them in the rear view mirror, and kept watch over her sleeping partner and temporary child with unflinching dedication.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Cora was sitting on the front steps as they pulled up, her leg bouncing uncontrollably with unspent energy. Lydia held a hand up to stop her worry in its tracks, nothing was immediately wrong. No one was in danger at that moment. There was time for calm.

 

“What happened?”

 

After half a decade together, Cora had learned to notice the subtle shifts in the energy flowing through the air whenever Lydia had a banshee moment. She was awake when Lydia's powers decided she needed to take a walk. These little walks had dropped off significantly now they lived in the middle of nowhere.

 

The moment Lydia wanted to scream, Cora's arm hair stood at attention. The prickling over her entire body urged her into action, the burning in her enchanted wedding ring only hammered home her sense of something being wrong. A text from Lydia stopped her from blasting out of the house and using her most irresponsible motorcycle to get to the train station as fast as possible. She grabbed her very sharpest crossbow bolts and sat herself down on their front steps to anxiously await the return of her wife.

 

“How's lunch coming?” Lydia asked her, completely bypassing her concern as she hurried into their home. “Please don't get too close to him,” she added softly so Kira and Malia couldn't hear her words. “He won't like you much, either.”

 

Cora took her words at face value and stayed where she was, watching Kira effortlessly pull the little werewolf boy from the car. She settled him on her hip and didn't seem too offended when Cora leaned away from the aggressive child, catching his scent as they entered the building. Children wandered and scent was the easiest way to track them.

 

“Food's on the table,” she called after Kira and her wife. Then she turned to Malia, sympathy spreading across her face as the other woman couldn't seem to take her eyes off the empty doorway where her partner had disappeared through. “It'll be fine,” she tried to reassure her, though it didn't seem to help all that much.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The four women watched as the boy devoured the lightly charred red meat like it was pure sugar, his attention so focused on the food that he didn't have any to spare for growling at Malia. Who found the lack of his rumbling to be a deafening silence.

 

“Did you feed him?” Lydia's eyes were wide with amazement. It was shocking how much such a tiny creature was eating. “Werewolves eat a lot after full moons, or did you both forget?”

 

Malia wouldn't take her eyes off the kid, so Kira was left to wallow in bashfulness for them both. Cora stifled a laugh behind her hand, wandering into their kitchen to fetch drinks. Today felt like a beer day, possibly a whiskey day. Tequila if Lydia's banshee thing was especially fantastic.

 

“We don't live with a werewolf full time, Lydia!” Kira tried to defend them, Malia nodding along though she seemed more interested in inching her way closer to the distracted boy. “And this one tends to just want oranges for some insane reason I don't want to try and analyse right now or possibly ever.”

 

Malia continued to nod, even though she clearly wasn't listening to what her girlfriend was saying. She pulled out a chair next to the boy and rested her head on folded arms. He took no notice of her, and moved on to drinking the plastic cup of milk set before him.

 

“Do you think you can talk to him?” Kira deflected Lydia's criticisms by asking Cora instead. “You were raised in a proper pack, kind of, and we think that's where he came from.”

 

Lydia froze, prompting Cora to abandon her search for a bottle-opener in favour of appearing at her wife's side. Lydia leaned into her embrace, again stopping the louder aspect of being a banshee from escaping. There was no telling how the little boy would react to that kind of thing so she fought against it with all her mental faculties, going so far as to draw energy from Cora.

 

“You going to tell us what's wrong?” Cora prompted her gently, rubbing her back in support and comfort. “Or do you need to go check your books first?”

 

Lydia's head shook in the negative almost imperceptibly. She didn't speak, but pulled away from Cora to lead them into her reasonably sized office. Cora and Kira followed, but Malia waved them off with a half-hearted wave of her hand. The kid still hadn't quite caught on to how close she was, and she didn't want to miss it.

 

“What happened?” Kira asked, panic radiating from her body. Cora scrunched up her nose and resisted the compulsion to stop the younger pack member from displaying such weakness. “He's okay, right?”

 

Lydia sat heavily in her rolling office chair, dropping her face into her palms. Cora leaned against the side of her desk, reaching out to give whatever comfort she could again. Kira watched them both carefully, even as she kept an ear out for trouble back in the other room. She didn't even realise she was doing it until she heard the boy cough and Malia giggle.

 

“He's scared of you,” Lydia started slowly, her words narrowly above a whisper. “He reeks of death.”

 

Kira's back hit the wall, and she let out all the air in her lungs as if she had been dealt a sharp blow to the stomach. “He's a child, he couldn't have kill-”

 

“That means he probably doesn't have anyone,” cut in Cora, carding her hands through Lydia's hair, stopping to admire the few grey hairs that would probably be gone soon. “Also probably why he can shift fully, and why he won't like me either.”

 

“God, how bad must you smell to him?” Lydia questioned her wife. Cora shrugged. “After what Derek did to you, there's been more than one incident with a rival pack.”

 

“He's too young to have those kind of instincts, though they will come with time, and sharper claws,” Cora again tried to reassure Lydia, downplaying the situation.

 

“His pack?” Kira breathed out, her voice distant and distracted. Malia was blowing bubbles in his milk, it was far too cute for a kid without a family anymore. “All of them?”

 

“He's covered in their dying moments and it's an extremely disturbing think to feel coming from a child,” Lydia stuttered out, forcing the tears that wanted to come forward to stop in their tracks. “He can't have anyone coming for him or they would have tried you kill you and Malia already for trying to kidnap their kid.”

 

Kira closed her eyes against the tide of sadness and ran both hands through her hair to calm herself down. “Therefore, no pack, he's an Alpha?”

 

Cora worried her bottom lip between her teeth, accidentally pulling Lydia's hair in her nervousness. Lydia stopped her own worrying to glare at up at her wife without any malice behind it. “Sorry,” she apologised quickly, taking a moment to draw strength from Lydia's emotional fortitude. “He's probably not going to stay one for long.”

 

Kira listened to Malia making the boy laugh and instinctively knew her partner was going to hurt herself sooner rather than later. That generally happened when Malia was left alone with a child, kids tended to find it funny when an adult tripped over themselves and Malia was an expert at this point in her life. “Why not?”

 

Cora sighed. “Which orphanage are we sending him to exactly?” Lydia pulled on her wrist and tangled their fingers together. “I haven't heard of any that could cater to his need within this country. There's a couple in South America, but they are really, really anti-foreigner and super suspicious of strangers,” Cora explained a little bit further. “But they're non-religious 'nuns' and most likely won't turn away an orphaned werewolf kid into the cold. We could take a road trip down south and get him out of our hair.”

 

Cora Hale had nearly died nine times in her life, each with varying degrees of actually dying, and it was a testament to the potential power of a thunder kitsune that Kira's glare had her afraid of dealing with near-death number ten.

 

“We aren't dropping him off with fake nuns!”

 

The giggling stopped with a crash. Kira closed her eyes in adoring frustration. Lydia laughed, easing some of the ever-building tension in her shoulders and neck. “Not if she's bonding with him, we aren't.”

 

Cora leaned more heavily against the desk. “If he doesn't have anyone, and there's almost no way he does with the level of loss Lydia thinks is hanging around him, and if one of us takes him in, then he'll be pack. Under Scott,” she stated with her most even tone, trying to let the weight of the words sink into Kira's mind. “He'll probably still be able to shift fully like Malia but he won't have all of the screaming instincts he does now and he won't be an Alpha.”

 

“Which will probably cause a massive problem when he finds out in the future,” Kira groaned, beating the back of her head against the wall a few times. “You aren't attached to your chairs, are you?”

 

Lydia rolled her eyes. “I married a werewolf, there was no way I was letting nice furniture on the ground floor of this house.”

 

“We have spares in the attic,” Cora added without a hint of guilt. If anything, she was proud of her own destruction. “We're the only supernatural creatures for miles around so everything passing by tries to kill the hell out of us. We have a carpenter on tab.”

 

“She's nice and doesn't ask many questions. We should go check on them, I might be annoyed if my house is flooding,” Lydia announced as she stood and pushed beyond Kira to check on Malia and the orphaned boy. Kira heard her not say 'on fire', which was a skill she had never quite picked up on no matter how much socialisation she did throughout her life.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By some kind of divine intervention, Malia hadn't actually broken anything in the entire dining room, though she did have another black eye forming over the other eye. Now she matched and would look like she was recently hit in the face by a two-by-four. Kira comforted herself by noting that her girlfriend wasn't bleeding at least.

 

“He's stopped growling,” Malia declared with more pride than was reasonable. The boy still followed her every movement, though his little fists had finally uncurled themselves. Malia didn't seem to notice her new injury. “He doesn't seem to hate me so much, and he hasn't said anything.”

 

“Everyone else he's ever trusted is probably dead, so he's going to have to trust someone other than Kira at some point,” Lydia said, full of tact as per usual. The boy didn't seem to understand her words. “I know some people in early childhood development that could help with the lack of speech, if it's just an upbringing thing. He could just not be able to speak, that's possible.”

 

If the boy, who couldn't have been more than two years old, sitting less than two feet away from her hadn't just lost everyone in his support group and therefore probably his family too, Malia would have found her cousin's widening eyes a gut-busting hilarity for the ages. Deer in headlights didn't cover how panicked Cora was at Lydia's words, the colour draining from her face and hand outstretched to stop her wife from getting any closer to the kid.

 

“No,” was all Cora got out of her mouth. Only Malia and the boy who really needed a nickname could see the deviousness on Lydia's face. “Lyd-”

 

Lydia whirled around on her, finger pointing at the centre of her chest. “I have grey hair, Cora. My time to have kids is clearly rapidly closing,” she began, stabbing her wife with her finger every other word. Cora wished she had just let Lydia get the damn hair dyed. “He needs somewhere to go and I can falsify records to make him seem like another miracle Hale who escaped. He could be a distant cousin in under an hour, honey, and he needs a werewolf around to help him get through the process every month. He's so young!”

 

Kira's eyes bypassed the brewing marital argument and landed on the bright plastic flower Malia was twirling between her fingers to the boy's delight. He seemed to barely notice that two of the new adults in his life were radiating negative energy like it was no tomorrow. Malia caught her eye, and smiled shyly.

 

Malia scuffed the toe of her shoe against the hardwood flooring, dropping her eyes as Kira burst into an excited, bouncing bundle of happy. They had both stopped listening to Cora try and worm out of having a kid while Lydia teased the almighty hell out of her. Cora had clearly forgotten the numerous times Lydia outright stated that children were from the devil and should never be within fifty feet of her unless it was an emergency or they were pack. Even then, the kid would have to be cute.

 

Blind-sided by a clearly faked ticking biological clock, all knowledge of and experience with her wife drained from Cora's brain, leaving her on the defensive and losing badly.

 

“We have more than enough space for him,” Lydia argued, ashamed that she couldn't force any fake tears to come out of her eyes. That would really sell her little show. “And we aren't exactly hurting for money here, what's the problem?”

 

Malia turned to give the boy the fake flower she found in the Martin-Hale kitchen that would soon be cut exactly in half in the impending divorce. His smile, showing obviously well-cared-for teeth, was wide and matched behind the werecoyote by her girlfriend. Kira moved in closer, heart overflowing with the big brown eyes taking notice of her properly for the first time since she re-entered the room.

 

“I think,” Malia whispered when Kira was close enough. Cora and Lydia continued their argument, neither one of them paying much attention to their guests or the child in the room. Malia stopped to compose herself, and Kira was close enough to hear her heart thundering inside her chest. “I think we should call him Lawrence for now.”

 

Kira's entire body stopped working for a moment. Her heart froze in her chest, her lungs refused to breathe, and there was absolutely zero thought going on inside her brain. Malia brushed the boy's hair out of his face while Kira recovered. She was used to her girlfriend shutting down after being given a particularly large piece of information, so Malia had all the time in the world to give her while she tended to the child who was no longer attempting to bite her hands.

 

The time spent alone with him was more than enough to get him acclimatised to her scent. It was enough for his young nose to differentiate the smell of werecoyote from werewolf as he definitely wasn't developed enough to make distinctions between people that he didn't spend all of his time around. Malia wanted to pat herself on the back for figuring it out, they totally should have had him sleep between them the previous night. That would have prevented at least one of her black eyes, though the second one was entirely her own fault.

 

Kira's body jump-started, her arms winding around Malia's waist, pulling the other woman into an close embrace. “Why Lawrence?”

 

Malia leaned back into Kira's arms. “If he's going to be another fire survivor or my half-brother or whatever, then he should have a Hale-ish name. Should we stop them?”

 

Kira turned her head and kissed her girlfriend. The boy, the newly deemed Lawrence, babbled at them, reaching out with his new flower toy. His lower lip jutted out as the two women he had grown to like seemed to be ignoring him. Thankfully, Malia heard the hitching of his breath, and recognised it as the beginnings of a sob.

 

“We could send him to live with someone who likes kids, maybe? Instead of us, who both can't really stand kids?” Cora effectively ended Lydia's fun. She caught Malia standing, wondering when she had crouched next to the kid's ad-hoc chair, and watched her hands slip underneath his arms, lifting him easily into the air. The boy squealed his delight at temporarily flying.

 

Two lithe arms wrapped themselves around her hips, and she shivered as Lydia kissed her neck directly under her ear. “My thoughts exactly, love.”

 

Cora rolled her eyes as she figured out what Lydia had done. “Mean,” she whispered, ignoring Lydia's soft laughter in her ear. “So very mean.”

 

“So, Peter Hale had another bastard?” Lydia suggested. Cora twitched her head back and forth in the negative. “Derek?”

 

“I will be your slave forever if you let me tell him about it,” Cora bargained immediately after Lydia through the idea out there. “But I doubt they'll go for it.”

 

“Visiting cousins in a tragic accident it is then,” Lydia compromised, kissing her neck again as she removed her arms. Cora missed the contact, but the contentment was overpowered by relief at not having a child overnight. The younger ones could deal with that, she had her wife and her ranch and needed exactly nothing else.

 

“You guys might need to move,” Cora interrupted Malia's playing with the boy. “I don't think that love shack of yours is big enough for three.”

 

Malia didn't notice her words, intent on cleaning Lawrence of the mess he had made of his lunch. He tried to wiggle out of her arms, but finally it was closer to a regular toddler behaviour rather than a scared werewolf child.

 

“He's going to sleep in a crib for a while right? We'll talk bigger apartment in a few months,” Kira responded easily. “We will need to get a crib.”

 

“I'll give you our carpenter's number,” interjected Lydia, heading off into the kitchen to fetch her purse. “Then we need to pick a name until he talks.”

 

Cora barked out in laughter. “We aren't torturing him!” Lydia flipped her off without turning around. “Not in front of the child, Lydia!”

 

“When did you figure out she was fu-” Malia went to ask, and cut herself off with a glance to Lawrence. “Messing, when did you figure out she was messing with you?”

 

Cora shrugged, shoving her hands in her pockets. “Right around her attempting to cry, that was taking it a bit far,” she explained. “So, what are we calling the pup?”

 

“We're thinking Lawrence,” Kira replied without thinking. As if already recognising his new temporary name, Lawrence reached out to Kira, catching Malia by surprise with the force he generated with his lunge. “He seems to like it.”

 

She got close enough to the pair of them to place her hand on Lawrence's back as he clutched at her clothes. Malia wrapped her free arm around Kira and bounced Lawrence on her hip. “Huh pup? You like Lawrence?”

 

“Yeah!” Lawrence yelled, startling the women holding him. Lydia re-entered the room to see him grinning wider than he had the entire afternoon.

 

Lydia rested against Cora's side, “I want one.”

 

“You do not, you liar!”

 


End file.
